Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	holy_a	word_n	1,536	5	4.0473	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56807	The conformists plea for the nonconformists, or, A just and compassionate representation of the present state and condition of the non-conformists as to I. The greatness of their sufferings, II. Hardness of their case, III. Reasonableness and equity of their desires and proposals, IV. Qualifications, and worth of their persons, V. Peaceableness of their behaviour, VI. The churches prejudice by their exclusion, &c. humbly submitted to authority / by a beneficed minister, and a regular son of the Church of England.	Pearse, Edward, 1631-1694.	1681 (1681)	Wing P976; ESTC R1092	66,864	80

are called to One even to the One Hope of their Calling The one writes You are guilty of Schism and the other says Who made it My Bowels my Bowels O thou the Prince of Peace make Peace in thine own House Family and Kingdom make of these twain one Body and let there be no Schism in it as they are made One Body in One the same Breastplate of Faith in the same Girdle of Truth so let them be shod with the Shoos of the Gospel of Preparation of Peace and let not one hinder another to run but cause both to walk in the same path to put on Charity and to have the same mind that was in thee Methinks it were but fit for us who weekly petition our good Lord to deliver us from all Vncharitableness from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism out of a Spirit of Love if the Peace of God rule in our Hearts upon our knees to petition our Governours for our Brethrens enlargement and reunion with us that they may not lie under the Censures and Reproaches of open Sinners nor lie under the Imputation of Schism and other suspicions and be the subject of Scorn to every Papistical Scribler and many other Mischiefs and Slanders But there being no hope of that let every Man do his part for healing of the Breaches And therefore I cannot but ask my Superiours Pardon to handle a tender point indeed even to recommend the Case of my Reverend Brethren the Nonconformists to the good Opinion and charitable thoughts of them that can help with one Act to decide what a thousand Volumns cannot I would not if possible be misunderstood I am for Unity and Conformity but not such an Uniformity as hinders Unity by turning the Church into a Party I am not a partial Hyper-aspistes they can best manage their Cause as best knowing their own mind neither have they been wanting to it Nor shall I give my Mother the Church an unbeseeming word but yet between the Judicious Holy and Peaceable part of Fathers and Brethren of it and the Factionmaking Aspiring-party I cannot but distinguish Indeed these call themselves the Church but by monopolizing the Church and ingrossing the Goods of the Church if they could they have no greater share of the Spirit of the true Catholick Church than their despised Brethren commonly called Schismaticks by them These are supra or Trans-Conformists that keep the Rule of Conformity much as they do their Residence These Men are Nonconformists too as I could shew in some considerable particulars and are a Rubrick to themselves But my business is not to accuse them but seeing the most are Non-conformists either above or under the Rule a Rule if strictly kept at all times in all Offices where were a man's Prudence and if a Man hath no Pruderce to use or may not use it he is very unfit to be a Minister in the Church of God I am for the calling of more Non-conformists into the Company and for making Non-conformists Conformists Our blessed Saviour in the Parable compares himself to an Housholder going a far Journey that gave authority to his Servants and to every Man his work and commanded the Porter to watch and when he went he left Peace as a Legacy My Peace I leave with you But alas how few have sought to get and keep that Legacy or to do their Work We may with Sorrow look into it and find it in his Absence a most broken and divided House In it we shall find two sorts of Children all by the same Father but not as if all of a Mother The elder and the greater combine make a mighty Party and they even rule the Mother These have the best of every thing and snatch what the others had or should have and part all as they please among themselves and use their poor Brethren no better than if they were Bastards These complain and entreat and beg but if they beg they are not regarded if they complain they are peevish and discontented deserve nothing or no better than to be turned out of doors if a Man pities them and pleads for them he is one of them The greater say These peevish whining Children are disobedient to our Mother vex her Bowels out hinder all Government and Uniformity if it were not for them how happy would it be with us But who can tell but the great Ones may fall out among themselves The Ejected have written pleaded their Cause drawn up their Case and petitioned but to what purpose To as much as a Man that hath a good Right to a part of an Inheritance but possessed by an elder Brother who thinks he can prescribe for all and plead Possession and Law besides that his Friends being Judges in the Court have given it him This poor younger Brother has but a weak Purse and few Friends and what doth he but remonstrate open his Case to many and to his elder Brother with humble Entreaties But because he doth not go to Plow or go a begging or to some Corners of the Land or go to some Forreign Plantation he is rated as a troublesom Fellow factious and querulous and knows not what he would have Possessors are deaf to Petitioners He that would recover his Right must go to Law for it or lose all except a little Alms and that as pure Kindness without pretence of Right or Desert There were a Company of Justices that sate long upon the Bench and these first made an Order for Ministers to come in Bond to certain Duties or else they discharge the Parishes of them and turn them out of doors Many hundreds refused to give in their Bonds upon which they were turned out of their Houses and Parishes and by an after-Order they were not to come within five Miles of any Corporation that sent Burgesses to Parliament or of their own last Abodes forbidding them thereby any Employment in Corporations to get their Livings or the Charity of their former good Neighbours if they had any These and their Families are up and down the Nation indeed no better esteemed which is a shame to tell than Vagrants by too many yea unfit to live Now forasmuch as they may be very useful it would be an Act worthy your place to move the Honourable Bench of Justices that never liked that rigorous Order in Mercy and Justice to take the Case of these ejected Ministers to consideration and by another Order to capacitate them to dwell and labour in any City Town Corporate Village and Parish whatsoever any thing in any Law or Statute to the contrary notwithstanding I make bold to present these following Particulars to you with Truth and Charity 1. Their Sufferings 2. The Hardness of their Case 3. The Reasonableness and Equity of many of their Desires and Proposals 4. Qualifications and worth of their Persons 5. Their Behaviour 6. The Conclusion I. Their Sufferings And they admit of various Aggravations according to their various

with for their Moderation And truly it is an ill sign of an aspiring contentious nature in those that will fall out with Peacemakers that are sober and moderate and wish that both contending sides may understand one another better and love one another more and remove the matter of debates and strifes How are the Ejected called it grieves my heart to hear them called all to naught and how are these names returned And many throw Bones of Contention among them whisper and backbite and carry tales to soment the heats which gentle tempers labour to cool The other broken Party of the dissatisfied and complaining Family are not so well agreed as it were to be desired but they differ more in Accidentals than Substantials from one another I mean the Brethren whose cause I attempt to open Some of them will consent to an imposed Form of Prayer and all to Decency and Order as necessary in Christian Assemblies and in a word to all that is contained in the General Rules and Laws of Christ and rationally deduced from them as far as they do understand They all submit to an Episcopacy of primitive Institution and Limitation with the due Exercise of Discipline and they that cannot agree to the same Form of Government are for maintaining Peace and Love under different Forms and they yeeld enough to have made them Ministers in the Apostles days and after They say 't is true that to us there is but one Lawgiver and that is Christ and they will teach whatsoever he hath commanded them They hold that his Laws are sufficient for the Government of the Church that the Church must be subject to Christ that her Power as Protestant Writers have maintained is only Ministerial under Him that all Power is seated still in Him and not made over by Him to any other that the Churches Power is not decisive for as such they argue that Controversies have not been decided by any that here ingrossed the name of the Church but declarative and so far binding as the Reasons are cogent and divine They acknowledge the King's Supremacy as it hath been declared by former Learned Writers against the Romish Antagonists and Usurpers of that Sovereign Right as by Nowel against Dorman Rainold's conference with Hart King James and many more They assert a Liberty which Christ hath given them and cannot subject themselves as the servants of men in the things of God They offer to assent to all the Essentials of the Christian Faith to observe all the Ordinances of Christ and every part of his Worship and Decency and Order in the Worship of God as was said before and in short do say Shew us but what the Apostles Rule was and we will walk according to it and as far as we have attained be of one mind and walk according to the same Rule But then they can never yeeld to declare an unfeigned Assent and Consent to Laws Rubricks and Ceremonies that are significant of any Grace or obligatory to any Duty of the Covenant of Grace or to make Ceremonies federal Signs tho not Seals nor the Reading the Apochrypha and Neglecting Canonical Scripture and other things which divers of them have spoken of at large and cannot be repeated in this place They profess and we believe them that they quarrel not because they may not be Lords and Bishops or that others are so promoted they declare it is no grief to them if the Magistrate or legal Patrons bestow the Revenues of the Church upon whom they please and are legally qualified according to the Constitution They only beg the use of that Liberty of their Consciences to preach and worship God according to the Primitive Rule and Simplicity and that they may not be Ejected and Excommunicated and forced to beg their Bread because they cannot consent to what they cannot believe nor vow against their Duty The danger of giving them a Toleration while they remain Dissenters is strongly suggested from the multiplication of Papists Socinians and Jews as the effect of the Toleration in the Netherlands But two things may be replied 1. Widen the Terms which may be done with safety to the Church and there will be no need of a Toleration they will be incorporated with us 2. There can be no such danger from Christians of the same Faith and substantial Worship but of different Accidental Modes as from Socinians Papists Jews of a contrary Faith and Worship And why we cannot be as kind and liberal to Natives indulging a Liberty to them in small things as we are to French Dutch and to Lutherans I do not know I have represented the Divisions of this most famous Church of Christ not with the exactness of an Historian nor of an Arbitrator or a Moderator but as best suiting with a Man in haste and trouble And here 's enough to move the honest and faithful Justices to arbitrate Differences and command the Peace Nothing else will do nor any other Man so likely to compose the Difference as they For Prayers innumerable have been made to God who acts by means in settlements of Peace and Order therefore we must pray Men too The different Parties will not agree The Commissioners * in the Savoy an 1662 commissioned by the King disputed and both carried the Cause The Ejected humbly petitioned the Bishops for Peace they would not hear them And what Arguing Preaching Writing hath been ever since Some Reverend Sons of the Church in love to Peace and fear of Enemies have earnestly called and exhorted the Dissenting Ejected Brethren to come and unite to come into the Present Constitution as safest as strongest as best c. But if they could not come in at the Narrow Door eighteen years ago and the Door as narrow still as it was then and there be the same Cross-bars laid across as were then to keep them out to what purpose is the Exhortation Is there a great Storm a coming they think that Christ is the same Ship and they are as safe as any other They may clearly plead they could have conformed at first upon better worldly terms than now they might have saved what they have lost and got their share with others to come now to conform when all places are full and not enow for numerous Expectants and when there is nothing for them without tedious waiting and if their Judgments and Consciences could not enter then how can they now Unless their Heads have voided all their Reasons and so are grown less or that Custom hath made the Entrance smoother for them Learned and Worthy Men have written for and against and are they gained over to one another If they are it is more than they will confess The one writes the Mischies of Separation the other denies the Charge and Proof and another throws back the Mischief a Mischief of Impositions and many Swords are drawn by Seconds too many bitter words for the Children of the same Heavenly Father that